Australian Molly Picklum has fired a shot across the bows of her World Surf League rivals with a lucrative win at the Vans Pipe Masters.
The 20-year-old from the NSW Central Coast scored a $US100,000 ($A150,000) pay day by winning the final of the invitational event on Oahu's iconic North Shore.
The event has been run since 1971, with a women's competition starting only three years ago.
Picklum is the first non-Hawaiian women's winner and the first Australian to take out the event since Julian Wilson in 2014.
It also shows Picklum will be a threat when she returns to the World Surf League championship tour from January 29 at the Billabong Pro Pipeline at the same location.
She made her championship tour debut this year, but did not make the mid-season cut and had to re-qualify, which Picklum did last month through the challenger series.
Picklum won a talent-packed final against Olympic champion Carissa Moore, fellow Hawaiian Bettylou Johnson and American Caity Simmers - all starting on the championship tour next month.
"I will put it towards a house deposit hopefully, and go live the dream somewhere," Picklum told Stab magazine of her winner's cheque.
American Balaram Stack won the men's event for the first time.
